Tom Simon, who died this week at age 71, was clerk of the Missouri Supreme Court for four decades. The judges he served said his title didn’t begin to do him justice.
Because judges are restrained from actively engaging in political matters, Mr. Simon became their face and voice in front of the other branches of government.
He went before the Legislature to help the judges win passage for drug courts to keep nonviolent offenders out of prison. Each year, he defended the judicial branch’s budget in front of legislators eager to cut it.
During four decades at the court, Mr. Simon worked for Republicans and Democrats, conservative and liberal judges. Mostly, he worked behind the scenes.
St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann, a former state legislator, said Mr. Simon “was a great clerk, not just for running that office but for the political connections he had across the street” from the Missouri Supreme Court Building — in the state Capitol.
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“He had great people skills,” Ehlmann added.
Thomas Francis Simon died Sunday at Capital Region Medical Center in Jefferson City. He was diagnosed about a year and a half ago with Lewy body disease, a form of dementia, his family said Monday.
Mr. Simon was clerk of the Supreme Court from Jan. 1, 1972, until he retired on June 1, 2011.
When he joined the court, its workload was so large, cases took years to reach final determination. Compensation for judges relied upon counties, and most court employees were still county workers.
Mr. Simon worked to reform the judiciary, culminating with passage by voters in 1976 of a constitutional amendment that consolidated trial courts into a system of circuit courts; consolidated appellate courts into one court with three geographic districts; allowed judges to be temporarily transferred to help manage case loads; and changed Supreme Court rules to help reduce delays.
“Tom made the modern judiciary a reality,” said former Chief Justice Edward D. “Chip” Robertson Jr., who served on the court from 1985 to 1998.
Former Chief Justice Michael Wolff, who served on the court from 1998 to 2011, said Mr. Simon enlisted the help of lobbyists, corporate general counsels and others to support the judiciary.
“He was like the Wizard of Oz, running things quietly from his office in the court, but he preferred to remain behind the curtain...,” Wolff said.
U.S. District Court Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Jr., a former chief justice who served on the court from 1992 to 2008, said judges and legislators looked up to Mr. Simon, who he said “widely was regarded as one of the most powerful persons in state government.”
Mr. Simon was reared in Brentwood. His father, a bank vice president, died in a traffic accident when Tom was 14. Mr. Simon graduated from the old Mercy High School in 1959 before earning his law degree at St. Louis University School of Law in 1965.
He was general counsel for General Mutual Insurance Co., then a patent attorney for Monsanto before moving to Jefferson City to work as a grant administrator for the old Missouri Law Enforcement Administration. A year later, Supreme Court judges named him clerk.
“As the face of the court, we could not have had better representation,” said Chief Justice Richard B. Teitelman.
Mass will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at St. Peter Catholic Church in Jefferson City with burial at Riverview Cemetery in Jefferson City.
Survivors include his wife, Diane Simon of Jefferson City; two ex-wives, Barbara Simon of Leawood, Kan., and Linda Simon of Minneapolis; two daughters, Susan Becker of Leawood, Kan., and Christina Simon of Austin, Texas; a stepdaughter, Krystle Scherling of Kansas City, Mo.; two sons, Joseph P. Simon of Kirkwood and Keith Simon of Columbia, Mo.; a sister, Joanne Mermelstein of Columbia, Mo.; a brother, Robert Simon of St. Louis; and eight grandchildren.
Virginia Young of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
Michael Sorkin is a reporter at the Post-Dispatch.
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